


The Wolf’s Tale

by osprey_archer



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2537180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Red Riding Hood doesn’t wait until after her encounter with the wolf to take up her ax.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wolf’s Tale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ember_Keelty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/gifts).



I sauntered through the forest toward my favorite bluebell glade. The thick, soft flowers housed crickets, which I loved to chase, and more importantly, the glade was far, far away from The Village and its hunters. Whenever I went close to the village during the day, someone always ended up trying to kill me, even though I only ever ate the oldest and sickliest of their sheep. They really should have thanked me for culling the herd, but no, it was crossbow bolts every time. 

So imagine my chagrin when, as I neared my bluebell glade, I heard a human singing. I crept forward, hiding behind the briars, and peered out at the human.

It was a small human female, picking _my_ bluebells. What was more, she smelled like the Hunter. 

The Hunter was the only one in The Village ever to get an arrow in me, and I still have a limp to prove it. I began to back away, moving my paws carefully across the leaves so I wouldn’t attract her attention. The _last_ thing I needed was the Hunter deciding that I had menaced his little girl and making it his life’s mission to stop me at all costs. 

I had almost gotten away, too, when a light breeze blew across the clearing, carrying with it the smell of her basket. 

Her basket! I had never before and never since have smelled anything as delicious as the scent of that basket. The rich, fatty scent of sausages. The sharp tang of cheese. The slightly fermented tartness of those special apples that grow only in the Hunter’s orchard, which smelled only richer and more wonderful from a winter in the cellar. 

Is it any wonder that I forgot all my caution and crept back toward the clearing?

Oh, and I meant to be cautious. She had tossed the basket aside with her cloak. I could grab it while her back was turned, and then the sausage and cheese and the apples would be mine.

I crawled into the clearing, keeping low to the ground. She was humming, out of tune, and she had her back to me. One step closer and - 

She turned.

I stopped dead still. She continued to hum and skipped across the glade. I crept forward again…

And she turned again. 

Each time I got close to the basket, she seemed to turn around. And the basket smelled so good that it was _agonizing_. What could she do if I took it, after all? _She_ didn’t have a crossbow with her. She’d probably just scream and run home, and maybe send the Hunter after me, but at that moment, I didn’t care. 

I snatched the basket up and raced off into the woods. 

Of course the girl noticed me. But she didn’t scream and she didn’t run; or at least, she didn’t run home. Instead she tossed her bluebells aside and ran after _me_. “Stop, thief!” she screamed, and whipped her cloak at me. It passed so close to me that it ruffled the hairs on the tip of my tail. 

I couldn’t run faster, not with that half-healed wound from the Hunter. I tore along at full speed, and she was still at my heels. I was going to die, all for a basket of meat, and they would make me into a wolf skin rug just like my grandma. 

And then I had a stroke of luck. We ran past a woodcutter.

That may not sound like a stroke of luck for a wolf, but I swear he saved my life. Not on purpose, mind you; he didn’t see me at all. But he saw the girl, and he put out an arm to stop her. “Whoa there, Red!” he called. “What’s the rush?” 

“Give me your ax!” Red yelled. 

“Now Red, you know your daddy doesn’t want you playing with sharp objects anymore after what you did to that bear - ”

Red gave a shriek of incoherent rage, and she must have grabbed the ax off him, because next thing I knew she was chasing right after me again. I’d gotten a bit of a lead while the woodcutter talked, but my leg was getting sore, and I knew it would give out on me at every moment. Where could I go? How could I escape this monster? 

The briar patch! Humans hate briars even more than they hate wolves. I dived inside, and lay there, panting, safe - 

Only to see the ax descending through the briars! She was following me! I scrambled to my feet again, stumbling out of the briars and limping away as fast as I could. But where could I go? Not ten feet from me stood a cottage! “Cut him off to the left!” she roared, crashing through the briars regardless of the thorns. 

Red behind me, woodcutter to the left of me, fence to the right of me: there was nothing to do but run into the cottage and pray there was back door. The ax swished, just inches from my tail. I dashed into the cottage. 

“Get him, Granny!” screamed Red, and I narrowly escaped being brained by a frying pan. 

“Hold still, whippersnapper!” yelled an old lady, flailing her frying pan. “You let go of my dinner right now, you rascal!” 

I dropped the basket onto the floor and took refuge under the table. My sides heaved as I panted. The old lady pushed her half-moon spectacles up her nose. “Where’d he go?” she said, and bent carefully to pick up the basket. “Oh well. It’s all here. Suppose it doesn’t matter…”

“He’s right there!” yelled Red. She seemed to fill the doorway, standing with the ax upraised above her head, her cloak snapping in the wind. “Stand aside, Granny!” 

“Now don’t cut up my furniture again, dear,” Granny said. “I’m rather partial to my dinner table.” 

Red tossed the ax to the side and leaped across the room toward the table, apparently with the intention of strangling me bare-handed. I leaped out of my hiding place, skidding across the room. I climbed halfway up the ladder into the attic, took a flying leap onto a shelf above the door, and knocked a wolfskin off the wall. It fell onto the woodcutter as he barreled into the door. Red attacked the bearskin, and I grabbed the basket between my teeth and fled through the kitchen window. 

Granny’s dog told us the rest of the story not long afterward. She said that as soon as the pandemonium had ceased, Red, the woodcutter, and Granny realized that they were going to need an explanation for the various injuries and the state of the cottage. They cooked up a story about how I tried to eat Red and Granny - as if I would eat a human! They’re far too stringy. But the woodcutter came along and fought me off, although not without sustaining grievous injuries himself, thereby protecting the helpless womenfolk. 

A little far-fetched, I know, especially the helpless part. But the humans in The Village seem to believe it. I’ve decided to lie low for a while. After all, there’s no need to eat sheep when I have this delicious basket of apples and sausage and cheese.


End file.
